Eligeth and Esior, Sphinx and his Owl

Commander / EDH Artifact Control Counterspell Mono-Blue Partner Primer Scry

PrettzyDizzy

Artifact (21)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Crystal Ball
• 1x Empyrial Plate
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Folio of Fancies
• 1x Glassblower's Puzzleknot
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Geode
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sentinel Totem
• 1x Sky Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Witching Well

Creature (11)

• 1x Augury Owl
• 1x Chasm Skulker
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Cryptic Annelid
• 1x Faerie Seer
• 1x Hullbreacher
• 1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
• 1x Overwhelmed Apprentice
• 1x Prognostic Sphinx
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Torrential Gearhulk

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace, Mirror Mage

Instant (18)

• 1x Aetherspouts
• 1x Condescend
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deliberate
• 1x Dissolve
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Foil
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Graven Lore
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Memory Drain
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Swan Song

Land (35)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Isolated Watchtower
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 24x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Zhalfirin Void

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Eyes Everywhere
• 1x Omen of the Sea

Commanders (2)

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Foresee
• 1x Inscription of Insight
• 1x Mystic Speculation
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Ravenform
• 1x Scour All Possibilities
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Tamiyo's Epiphany
• 1x Ugin's Insight
• 1x Windfall

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Maybeboard

Creature (18)

• 1x Alrund, God of the Cosmos  ^Flip
• 1x Artificer's Assistant
• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Body of Knowledge
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cavalier of Gales
• 1x Geist of the Archives
• 1x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Omenspeaker
• 1x Sage's Row Savant
• 1x Sigiled Starfish
• 1x Silver Myr
• 1x Spellskite
• 1x Sphinx of Foresight
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Thassa's Oracle
• 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1x Thieving Skydiver

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Instant (14)

• 1x AEtherize
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Archmage's Charm
• 1x Daze
• 1x Engulf the Shore
• 1x Fated Infatuation
• 1x Graven Lore
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Negate
• 1x Opt
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Precognitive Perception
• 1x Saw it Coming

Land (4)

• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Snow-Covered Island

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Inscription of Insight
• 1x Mentor's Guidance
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Unexplained Vision

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Eyes of the Watcher
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Jace's Sanctum
• 1x Medomai's Prophecy
• 1x Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1x Shark Typhoon

Artifact (3)

• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sentinel Totem

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Story time:

Sphinx and his owl - Eligeth and Esior.

Once upon a time there was a powerful sphinx known as Eligeth. Centuries ago, Eligeth stumbled upon a truth that no being was supposed to know, and now he exists about five minutes into every possible future. While this power made him a incredibly powerful it also made him a target of ire for many beings in the multiverse. Thus whenever he appeared, he was soon struck down by his enemies.

At first he made an alliance with a djinn named Siani, Eye of the Storm who herself was a Jeskai monk in search of understanding the true nature of reality. While at first this partnership pleased Eligeth he soon realised that despite their similarities, they were ill suited for each other. While Siani wished to fight with her many avian friends, Eligeth saw them only as a hindrance and soon left Siani and her flock.

The Sphinx searched far and wide for a new partner. He heard of a seer who was blessed by Gods and a trickster who had thousand faces but none was able to satisfy Eligeths strict needs. He did not long for an equal and instead looked for someone he could use. He would be the shiniest star in the sky while his partner would be the one to support him.

As luck would have it Eligeth didn't need to stay alone for too long as while wandering through the multiverse he stumbled upon an owl known as Esior. The Owls magic made Eligeth harder to be seen by his enemies and soon these two winged beings made an alliance; Eligeth would provide them a great spell advantage while Esior would help Eligeth to channel his mana by protecting both of them from harm.

Indeed, Eligeth would be thrilled to head into battle with Esior by his side. But if you wish to borrow her strength, there is something you must understand: to Esior, Eligeth is her familiar.

The End?

This is a control deck with partners Eligeth, Crossroads Augur and Esior, Wardwing Familiar at it's helm. We run a plethora of ramp and control pieces and close out the game with either damage or attrition.

Background

Like in the story, I first paired up Eligeth with Siani but soon found out that Siani wasn't what I was looking for. While Siani has synergy with Eligeth, (they both feed each others abilities) Siani herself was too weak. Eligeth would get targeted constantly rarely sticking on the board and Siani would usually be a non-threat. I also feel like that by focusing on both scrying and flying I spread the decks theme too thin and thus I decided to make some changes on it. My second choice was to pair Eligeth with Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix or Sakashima of a Thousand Faces but decided against it since I already have two simic decks and a deck with Sakashima as its commander. In the end I decided to go with Esior since her ability to protect commanders is nothing to scoff at.

So name of the game is scrying and ramping. Eligeth is the decks spine and thus we need to do all we can to keep him on the field.

How do we win?

This deck aims to win by gaining us so much card advantage so we have answers for almost everything our opponents throw at us so that when when the time comes we can finish them with either commander damage (we can speed that up with Empyrial Plate ) or normal creature damage. Clear out opponent's tables with cards like Aethesporuts and Cyclonic Rift or do a massive Windfall and Hullbreacher play and watch them squirm while you net absurd amounts of treasures.

I currently don't run Thassa's Oracle but it can definitely help us to close some games if we are close to decking ourselves out.

Card choices

Esior, Wardwing Familiar - For a low cost of 1U Esior provides protection for Eligeth and herself.

Empyrial Plate - This deck can draw a lot of cards so Empyrial Plate can buff our creatures by ridiculous amounts and since both of our commanders have a built in evasion we can hit our enemies more easily.

Fierce Guardianship , Foil and Force of Negation - Free counterspells are always nice and allows us to spend out mana more freely since we don't have to leave some of it open for our opponents turns. Since eligeth is so important for the deck, we also run plethora of other counterspells.

Hullbreacher - Very strong by itself and together with Windfall it can be back breaking. Folio of Fancies is also great with Hull-boy.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Kira is our secondary Esior and can protect our creatures from getting targeted by our opponents. Note that this also affects our own spells, but it's rarely a problem for us.

Prognostic Sphinx - Good body, ability to protect itself and scry 3 makes this a all around good choice for the deck.

Torrential Gearhulk - Pet card of mine. Good body and great abilities make this an all around star.

Chasm Skulker - Has a potential to grow massive and be a finisher.

Psychosis Crawler - Instead of growing massive, Psychosis Crawler can end games by burning our opponents.

Ravenform - I strongly believe that Ravenform will be a new blue staple, at least in dimir and mono blue decks. While being a sorcery can be problem, it's effect is too good to pass up. Great card all around, thank you Kaldheim!

Mystic Sanctuary - Since we scry/draw so much we usually get a card we put on top of our library back to our hand very fast and together with Cryptic Command we have a possibility to lock out at least one player for a while.

Glassblower's Puzzleknot and Omen of the Sea - They scry when they come and they scry when they leave. Early game they can smooth our draws and later with Eligeth they can simply draw.

Jace, Mirror Mage - While scry 2 is good, ability to kick this spell and get a another copy of it is marvelous. When repeatable scry 2 can become repeatable scry 4 we are playing with power.

Eyes Everywhere - Can work out as our "removal" and as a Phyrexian Altar when we have Eligeth out on the field.

Graven Lore - GL can scry us a lot and with instant speed nonetheless.

Cards I'm contemplating about

Marit Lage's Slumber - 2 cmc snow-land payoff card. I might add this at some point but as of now I've no idea what to cut from the list.

Alrund, God of the Cosmos   - Alrund is a maro card and Hakka scrys, but as of now I'm not convinced enough of their power.

Fated Infatuation - Scry two is useful and copies of some of our creatures like, Cryptic Annelid and Consecrated Sphinx , would be great but UUU mana cost is pretty restrictive since lot of our ramp comes from the colorless artifacts. If I end up adding more non-legenadry creatures or change Esior in to a Sakashima of a Thousand Faces I'll add this in.

Imprisoned in the Moon - Mono blue "removal" which I ended up cutting in favor of Ravenform .

Shark Typhoon - Strong contender for the deck which might find it's way in to the deck sooner than later.

Medomai's Prophecy - Sagas are generally slow so they have to be very good or on theme to be played. At the moment Medomai's Prophecy is so close to be added to the deck. I'll just have to decide is it worth to cut something.

My other primers, if you happen to be interested

Debts to Pay and Taxes to Collect - A Group slug deck with staxing and lifegain mixed in. It is helmed by Liesa, Shroud of Dusk aka Liesa, Junior Tax Collector and Enforcer of Non-vital Mandates at the Multiversal Revenue Service and Regulatory Agency (MRSRA for short).

Well, that's it. Shows over folks. While "Sphinx and his owl" duo just left the building our team of experts will be here to answer any and all questions you might have about them. Signed autographs can be bought at the entrance desk along with duos other merch so don't forget to grab something special to that important person back at home!

No refunds.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 28 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 22 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.63
Tokens	Bird 1/1 U, Bird 2/2 U, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Illusion */* U, Manifest 2/2 C, Squid 1/1 U, Treasure